65 pages • 2 hours read
Shehan KarunatilakaThe Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Value of Human Life
In The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, Karunatilaka advocates for the intrinsic value of human life. Paradoxically, the author develops this theme through the development of violent characters and a nihilistic tone. This examination of nihilism delves into existentialism and ultimately champions human life as valuable on an individual and societal level.
As the narrator and titular character, Maali Almeida embodies this theme. His disappearance and death are taken seriously by his loved ones, but structures of justice such as the police department try to brush away his disappearance. In the face of apathy, Jaki, DD, and Maali’s mother advocate for Maali as an individual. Their love for him exemplifies the value of his life. Although most people don’t know who Maali is and many of his former associates don’t care about his death, the three people who fight for him inform his character development. Jaki especially seeks to prove that Maali didn’t die in vain. She risks her life to complete his unfinished business, highlighting her respect for his life and her desire to maintain his dignity, even in death. Through Jaki’s devotion to his memory, Maali learns how to appreciate himself.
Maali’s life story marks how war and oppression devalue human life in general. He must keep his sexuality a secret, and as a photojournalist, he risks his life to capture evidence of mass murder and atrocities. Karunatilaka provides details that show that life is cheap in these circumstances; the garbage men impassively dismember corpses for a living, and dissidents are tortured in a Palace. Maali flounders while alive, chasing the highs of gambling and casual sex to feel happiness in an otherwise tragic environment; he cannot live openly as a gay man, and he cannot publish his photos without risking death or torture. This develops into a newfound awareness of what truly matters after his death. Maali comes to understand that there is no need to hang onto resentments or dreams from life because what happens before the In Between does not have to be relevant after death. Though this seems paradoxical, it frees Maali and allows him to appreciate human life more. Life is but a short moment in time in comparison with the greater scheme of things.
In the In Between, Maali consistently advocates for the value of human life. When the other ghosts team up with Sena and the Mahakali to set up Drivermalli as a “suicide bomber,” Maali begs them to stop and whispers to Drivermalli to consider the innocent lives in the building. Maali doesn’t take pleasure in death or vengeance, even when stock antagonists like Stanley or Major Raja are killed. Maali understands that dehumanizing one person leads to dehumanizing many, which only begets more cycles of senseless violence. Maali believes that human life is “not nothing,” which means that he appreciates human life for all its flaws and beauty. In a novel in which society oppresses individuals who then lash out and oppress each other, Karunatilaka uses his titular character and narrator to advocate for disrupting violent cycles to save lives. This is emphasized when Stanley and Maali meet in the afterlife, Stanley apologizes for killing Maali, and Maali forgives him. This moment of reconciliation occurs immediately before Maali is reborn into his next life, providing hope that the cycle of violence will finally be disrupted.
The Importance of Journalism
While Karunatilaka’s novel uses non-journalistic narrative strategies such as second-person narration and magical realism, this is a novel that champions the importance of journalism. Journalists are presented as advocates of unbiased storytelling in the pursuit of truth and justice, a counterpoint to the many antagonists who seek power above all else.
The setting of the Sri Lankan Civil War is one of carnage and corruption. Journalists play an especially important role in this environment because stories of this war can be manipulated to make one side look like the hero and the other look like the enemy when there are no clear answers; all of the factions shown in this novel, including the police, the military, international aid organizations, and JVP insurgents are shown harming innocent people. No one truly wins in a Civil War, but journalists can try to show the truth through their reporting. Maali’s role as a photojournalist is dangerous but necessary. He constantly puts himself in harm’s way so he can expose what is happening. He is at risk both in the moment of photographing and afterward when his photographs could compromise people in power. Maali witnesses countless acts of gratuitous violence and watches hundreds of people die, but this trauma doesn’t stop him because he understands the power of a photograph to change hearts and minds.
The importance of journalism can also be seen in how the Sri Lankan government seeks to control the narrative. Maali’s employers include higher-ups in the government, with the understanding that he will publish photographs that make certain sides look heroic and other sides look demonic. But it is difficult for those committing atrocities to trust that journalists will capture the narrative the way the oppressors want. Journalists become targets of violence, torture, disappearance, and murder, penalized for being unbiased watchdogs.
The red bandana is a symbol of neutrality for journalists. Maali wears the red bandana in war situations so he can mark himself as uninvolved in the fighting and remain safe from bombs or bullets, or as safe as he can be amid chaotic violence. When Crow Man receives his bandana as an altar offering, Karunatilaka implies that the power of the courageous journalist seeking the truth is a strong totem, highlighting the importance of Maali’s work. But even though Maali wears the red bandana to signal neutrality, his presence and his work make him complicit in the war. Maali is a helper, not a hurter, but he is an intimate part of the war whether he saves people or kills people. This makes his role as a journalist complicated and threatens his character development while living—he doesn’t cope well, turning to gambling and hurting people he loves. In death, Maali retains his Nikon camera, highlighting the importance of photojournalism to his identity, and he is able to balance his complicated feelings by exhibiting his photos.
In The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, journalists are heroes. Maali is an intrepid photojournalist, and Jaki is a brave news anchor. She and Radika speak truth to power on the air, reaching thousands of Sri Lankans and losing their jobs as a result. Because Jaki believes in telling the truth, she symbolizes the importance of passionate journalists who are unafraid to tell the world the real story. Throughout his novel, Karunatilaka is himself like a journalist, bringing up truths that his society would rather ignore—only recently over, there are ongoing investigations into atrocities and war crimes in Sri Lanka. With this, Karunatilaka’s novel is not just a story about the value of human life but a documentation of the Sri Lankan war.
The Possibility and Hope for Change
The “seven moons” alluded to in the title of this novel refer to the time a spirit has to find their Light and be reborn. These seven moons are important because a week can fly by without any change, but people can also fundamentally change in a day. Maali’s journey in the afterlife is one of metamorphosis. In this novel, the awareness that change is possible and good makes space for character development and the possibilities for peace and freedom.
Maali is already on a path to changing himself just before he dies. He settles his gambling debts, resolves to commit himself to DD, and decides to quit his photojournalist job and move out of the country with DD. Maali has entertained these ideas in the past, and neither he nor the reader gets the chance of finding out if the living Maali is capable of this change. Therefore, his change really comes after death. He learns how to let go of his obsession with keeping his photographs safe and his resentment toward his father. He learns to value human life and forgive himself for his past mistakes, and he learns that he must gamble on the universe to free himself. These layers of character development are motivated by Maali’s exhaustion with pain and a new sense of nihilism in the afterlife. He discovers that few things on Earth actually matter, especially in the grand scheme of this In Between and potential Light. Though he still believes that human life is valuable, he changes his perspective about what is most important to him, thereby changing himself.
Maali is reborn as a Helper, guiding other spirits to the Light. In many ways, this job resembles the work he did as a photojournalist. But as a Helper, Maali is truly at peace; he has no ill feelings toward the ghosts he meets, regardless of what they’ve done. Radical forgiveness is a form of metamorphosis because it implies that one has shed the frustrations, resentments, and other feelings that inform the way one sees oneself. When Maali forgives Stanley for murdering him, he highlights the senselessness of not moving forward and onward with your life. There is no point in staying angry with Stanley because they’re all dead anyway. Coming to terms with the loss of corporeality is tied to a spiritual metamorphosis that transforms the way Maali views and values himself and others.
In this novel, the static characters suffer the most. Sena is the same in death as he was in life; he wants to be a follower, and he needs the structure of a hierarchy in which he leads other men on behalf of a stronger, more powerful entity. In life, this following led Sena to an early and violent death. In death, it ties him to an eternity of resentment, anger, and vengefulness. Sena’s character doesn’t develop, which puts him in an endless loop of violence begetting more violence. Sena is a warning to Karunatilaka’s reader to consider the importance of growing better and moving on from past hurts and past selves.
In the novel’s final chapter, Maali again decides to undergo the metamorphosizing process of rebirth. Though he likes being a Helper, the longer he does it, the more he forgets about the people and things he used to care about. This is Maali’s signal that he is ready for another attempt at change. He dives into the water, ready for his new rebirth. Though this is in some ways risky, it is emblematic of Maali’s character development. He trusts the universe to place him where he needs to be and understands the value of constant change and development. Pushing himself to do and be new things is a gift that Maali takes advantage of to live up to his fullest potential.
